i was recently reading an article on the striped maple. seems that while very decorative it did not serve well on weapons, especially axes/tomahawks as it had a bad habit of breaking along the dark stripes. thus a good wood, such as ash, or hickory was used and artificially striped chemically (iron & acid as mentioned earlier) or via actually scorching as i had mentioned.
this may be a modern well made custom or 'vintage' axe, or a late 19c period. {i myself eriously doubt it's an 18c one or even early 19c}. if i could trace the stamp to a mfg. or smith it would be helpful. i assume that as it was bought here by a brit originally, it may be one that never made it across the big water where it would have been used and abused and weathered.
possibly bought locally & hung in some ex-redcoat's mansion where it was looked after and kept along with his other trophies. possibly made last month. if so the maker went to an awful lot of trouble to replicate it, the steel patina and the wear patterns that have their own light patina. possibly made to spec by an avid collector, like this one i had made by a pennsylvania smith back in the late 1960's and have moved with me thru my years in the coast guard, alaska, the middle east to the UK over the last decades.
there is a guy in the US that might be able to authenticate, or at least identify it he charges a nominal fee for an email/photo series opinion, or a 25$ fee (if you send it to him & pay for it's return) for a certification of authenticity if it passes. i won't send it, but the photo route to know more may be worth the £13.
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